The following commentary was written by Daksh Arora, a project engineer at GameChange Solar, content director for the MIT Energy Conference 2025, and a fellow at the Clean Energy Leadership Institute. See our commentary guidelines for more information.
States like Massachusetts must take the lead in advancing the United States’ climate goals, especially under the incoming Trump administration. While the Biden Administration’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 made significant strides, the U.S. is still on track to achieve only 66% of its greenhouse gas reduction targets by 2030.
With the potential for further setbacks, such as a possible second withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, states like Massachusetts must step up to drive the deployment of clean energy and climate solutions.
The “Direct Pay” provision in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a game-changer for municipalities, state and local governments, and other tax-exempt entities to access federal clean energy tax credits. This provision allows entities such as nonprofits, schools, tribal governments, and municipal utilities to receive tax credits directly from the IRS, rather than relying on tax liability to claim them.
Before the IRA, only private entities could benefit from these credits, putting public entities at a disadvantage in developing clean energy projects. The Direct Pay provision has no cap on government spending through 2032, offering new opportunities for public sector investment in clean energy. Furthermore, IRA also increases the maximum available tax credit for certain clean energy projects, from 30% to 50%, with the potential for up to 70% or more for projects in energy or low-income communities, or those using American-made materials, helping overcome financial barriers that previously slowed public clean energy development.
To claim direct pay, eligible entities must complete their energy projects before receiving payment from the federal government, which will occur the following year. While the tax credits will lower overall project costs, upfront capital is still needed to finance projects before the refund arrives.
To help address this, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), a $27 billion program established by another IRA provision, provides increased green bank financing, supporting an equitable green financing ecosystem across the U.S. The IRS just finalized the direct pay rules and it would be really difficult for the next administration to repeal it.
City governments like in Somerville and Cambridge can use direct pay to supplement the costs of deploying renewable energy infrastructure such as solar panels and storage technologies on public lands and buildings; electrifying vehicle fleets; and building out electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Direct Pay is also a significant shift that allows public power entities, like the New York Power Authority (NYPA), to directly own renewable energy projects instead of relying on complex public-private partnerships. This makes it easier for NYPA to scale up clean energy projects by bypassing the need for third-party ownership structures that were previously required.
Regardless of this question, investing in public capacity is a net win for the environment as direct pay not only levels the playing field between for-profit and tax-exempt entities but also shifts energy generation ownership from private to public and nonprofit sectors, enabling more consumer-focused management of energy assets. States like Massachusetts should ensure that benefits from the IRA reach low-income and marginalized communities.
Massachusetts just streamlined the process for building solar and wind farms, transmission lines, and other energy infrastructure to help meet its climate goals by 2050. The state can do more by working to help communities understand the types of investments eligible for direct pay and how to secure financing for clean energy projects, making access to this funding easier and more efficient. The state can also lead by setting an example by deploying climate solutions at scale and ensuring utilities maximize the federal clean energy tax credits by regulatory oversight.
Employees work at a Rivian electric vehicle factory in Normal, Ill., in 2021. A historic recovery in manufacturing jobs between 2019 and 2023 was concentrated in small urban areas such as McLean County, where Normal is located, and where car and candy factories have added jobs. (Courtesy of Rivian)
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, McLean County, Illinois, was known mostly as the home of State Farm Insurance in Bloomington and Illinois State University in Normal.
Now, the area illustrates a trend that’s bringing more factories to small cities with lower costs of living: It has thousands of new jobs manufacturing Rivian electric vehicles and a new candy factory that will produce Kinder Bueno and other Ferrero candies.
“Food and electric cars. This is not something we were known for before 2019,” said Patrick Hoban, president of Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council in McLean County.
“We’re primarily an insurance and university town that’s just now seeing a rise in manufacturing. Rivian has ramped up from 300 to 8,000 employees, and I don’t think anyone realized how fast that was going to happen,” Hoban said.
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to rebuild American manufacturing, and he won handily in most areas hollowed out by the movement of factory jobs overseas. But the rebound Trump promises has already been underway in many places: McLean County is part of an unusually strong jump in manufacturing jobs between 2019 and 2023 — the first time manufacturing employment has recovered fully from a recession since the 1970s, according to a recent report from the Economic Innovation Group, a bipartisan public policy organization in Washington, D.C.
There were about 12.9 million manufacturing jobs in 2023, slightly more than in 2019. However, the number of manufacturing jobs has declined precipitously since the all-time peak in 1979, when there were 19.4 million of them and they were a much larger share of overall employment.
Joseph McCartin, a Georgetown University professor and labor history expert, said manufacturing has been on an upswing since 2010 as the nation started recovering from the Great Recession. The pandemic interrupted the trajectory, but the United States recently saw a hopeful increase in pay for the new jobs, he said, as the Biden administration aimed to increase both wages and jobs through the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.
“The Biden administration tried to use policy to ensure that more of these would be union jobs or at least offer union-level wages,” McCartin said. “This approach is almost certainly dead due to the results of the election.”
Employers may have a hard time filling lower-paying manufacturing jobs such as meat processing if the new Trump administration deports the immigrants who fill them, said William Jones, a University of Minnesota history professor and former president of the Labor and Working Class History Association.
“These will be hard hit if Trump follows up on his deportation plan,” Jones said. “The political rhetoric is that a bunch of native-born workers will move into these jobs, that they’re getting squeezed out, but that’s actually not the case. Some of these industries are extremely dependent on immigrant labor.”
Where growth happened
Small urban areas such as McLean County got most of the increase in manufacturing jobs between 2019 and 2023, according to the Economic Innovation Group report. Rural areas lost those jobs, and large cities saw no change.
It was mostly Sun Belt and Western states that saw the increases during those years, according to a Stateline analysis of federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
The largest percentage changes in manufacturing jobs were in Nevada (up 14%), Utah (up 11%), and Arizona and Florida (each up 9%). The largest raw numbers of new manufacturing jobs were in Texas (up 48,200), Florida (up 35,100) and Georgia (up 22,900).
Southern states such as Alabama and Mississippi also have seen more automotive jobs as manufacturers have taken advantage of lower costs and state “right-to-work” laws that weaken unions. Vehicle manufacturing jumped by 7,800 in Alabama and 6,600 in Mississippi, the largest increases outside California.
Meanwhile, traditional Rust Belt states have seen continued declines, with manufacturing jobs down about 2% in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and also in Illinois — despite McLean County’s success.
Manufacturing is playing a critical role in Nevada as it tries to diversify its tourist-oriented economy so it can better weather downturns such as the one during the pandemic, said Steve Scheetz, research manager for the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development.
Automotive and other battery manufacturing and recycling, driven by electric carmaker Tesla and battery recycling firm Redwood Materials, account for much of the increase in Nevada manufacturing, Scheetz said.
The Biden administration tried to use policy to ensure that more of these would be union jobs or at least offer union-level wages. This approach is almost certainly dead due to the results of the election.
– Joseph McCartin, Georgetown University
As in Illinois, the job growth tended to be in smaller areas outside big cities, such as Storey County, just east of Reno, with a population of about 4,200.
“Fifteen years ago, this small county in rural Nevada was relatively unknown,” Scheetz said, adding that jobs and economic output has risen tenfold and the number of total jobs — including manufacturing — has grown from less than 4,000 to almost 16,000 in those 15 years. The county also is home to plants making building materials, industrial minerals and molded rubber, among other products.
The Biden administration focused on bringing more blue-collar jobs to small cities like Normal and Bloomington, said Jones, the University of Minnesota professor.
“Much of the growth is due to [President Joe] Biden’s manufacturing investments. There was a conscious strategy to focus on small towns to get the political benefit in places that tended to vote Republican,” said Jones.
If there was a play for political benefit, it got mixed results: Vice President Kamala Harris carried McLean County, Illinois, on Nov. 5, but she lost Storey County, Nevada, by the largest margin for a Democrat in 40 years.
Blue-collar wages
The decline of unions and the availability of cheaper labor overseas have dampened U.S. factory job wages in recent decades. Even so, manufacturing jobs remain an attractive path for blue-collar workers.
Manufacturing pay still ranks fairly high among the blue-collar fields at an average $34.42 per hour as of October — less than wages in energy ($39.98) or construction ($38.72), but considerably more than hospitality ($22.23) or retail ($24.76). That also was the case in 2019, and it has led many state and cities to seek more factory positions to balance out the lower-paying service jobs that have blossomed as manufacturing has waned.
But in the past year, state Republican leaders have pushed back on a burgeoning Southern labor movement that aims to bring higher wages and better benefits to blue-collar workers.
In Alabama, Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed a new law in May that would claw back state incentives from companies that voluntarily recognize labor unions. GOP leaders in Georgia and Tennessee also passed laws pushing against a reinvigorated labor movement, viewing unions as a threat to the states’ manufacturing economies.
Much of the increase in Alabama manufacturing jobs has been in the northern part of the state, near Tennessee and Georgia. Since the pandemic began, Mazda Toyota Manufacturing came on line with the goal of hiring 4,000 vehicle production workers and another 2,000 in nearby parts factories as other manufacturers also boosted hiring. Private investment in Alabama automotive manufacturing totaled $7 billion over the same time frame, Stefania Jones, a spokesperson for state Commerce Secretary Ellen McNair, said in a statement to Stateline.
Supply-chain problems during the pandemic illustrated the advantages of American-made goods, said McCartin, the Georgetown University professor. However, without union support, today’s factory workers are unlikely to achieve the middle-class lifestyle enjoyed by earlier generations, he said.
“The growth of manufacturing itself is unlikely to become a panacea for what ails working-class America,” McCartin said.
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.
The Biden administration has enacted the most consequential federal clean energy and climate policy in U.S. history, giving the nation a fighting chance at reducing greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to deal with the climate crisis. Former President Donald Trump, who has won the 2024 presidential election, has pledged to undo that work.
Though Trump’s executive powers will allow him to slow the energy transition in a number of ways, the extent to which he rolls back Biden’s clean energy accomplishments will be dictated in part by whether Republicans retain control of the House of Representatives. The GOP flipped the U.S. Senate, but votes are still being counted in key House races as of Wednesday morning.
Here’s what clean energy and climate experts say is most likely to be lost under a second Trump administration — and what might survive.
What Trump has said about energy
Trump’s rhetoric presages a worst-case future. He has called climate change a hoax and the Biden administration’s climate policies a “green new scam.” He has said he wants to repeal the landmark Inflation Reduction Act and halt the law’s hundreds of billions of dollars of tax credits, grants, and other federal incentives for clean energy, electric vehicles, and other low-carbon technologies.
Trump has also made “drill, baby, drill” a call-and-response line at his rallies, pledging to undo any restraints on production and use of the fossil fuels driving climate change. U.S. oil and gas production is already at a record high under the Biden administration.
“He has pledged to do the bidding for Big Oil on day one,” Andrew Reagan, executive director of Clean Energy for America, said during a recent webinar.
“Oil and gas lobbyists are drafting executive orders for him to sign on day one,” Reagan added, citing news reports of plans from oil industry groups to roll back key Biden administration regulations and executive orders.
A Trump administration would be all but certain to reverse key Environmental Protection Agency regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles, and the oil and gas industry, all of which analysts say are necessary to meet the country’s climate commitments. It’s also almost sure to lift the Biden administration’s pause on federal permitting of fossil-gas export facilities.
Trump has also promised to withdraw the U.S. from international climate agreements (again), including the Paris agreement aimed at limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
“We know that Trump would take us out of the Paris agreement, and that would be the last time his administration uttered the word ‘climate,’” Catherine Wolfram, an economist at the MIT Sloan School of Management and former deputy assistant secretary for climate and energy economics in the Biden administration’s Treasury Department, told Canary Media. “Losing that global leadership would be one of the greatest losses of a Trump presidency.”
What will happen to the Inflation Reduction Act?
Trump won’t have the power to enact all of his promises on his own. Some of the decisions must be made by Congress, including any effort to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act or to claw back unspent funds from that law or the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.
Complete repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act would be highly disruptive to a clean energy sector that has seen planned investment grow to roughly $500 billion since the law was passed in mid-2022.
It would also undermine clean energy job growth, which has increased at roughly twice the pace of U.S. employment overall. A recent survey of clean energy companies found that a repeal of the law would be expected to lead to half of them losing business or revenue, roughly one-quarter losing projects or contracts, about one-fifth laying off workers, and about one in 10 going out of business.
“We found that especially rural areas and smaller rural communities would experience the largest negative impacts of repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act,” Shara Mohtadi, co-founder of S2 Strategies, said in an October webinar presenting the survey data. “These are the regions of the country that have seen the biggest uptake in the economic benefits and the manufacturing jobs coming from other countries into the United States.”
These on-the-ground realities have driven expectations that large swaths of the law’s tax credits would be likely to survive even with Republican control of the White House and both houses of Congress. Trump would face pushback within his own party to undoing the law entirely.
In an August letter to current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana), 18 House Republicans warned against repealing the clean energy and manufacturing tax credits created by the Inflation Reduction Act, which have “spurred innovation, incentivized investment, and created good jobs in many parts of the country — including many districts represented by members of our conference.”
“Prematurely repealing energy tax credits, particularly those which were used to justify investments that already broke ground, would undermine private investments and stop development that is already ongoing,” the 18 House Republicans wrote. “A full repeal would create a worst-case scenario where we would have spent billions of taxpayer dollars and received next to nothing in return.”
Republicans would need a roughly 20-seat majority to overcome opposition from these party members opposed to a full repeal, said Harry Godfrey, head of the federal investment and manufacturing working group of trade group Advanced Energy United.
“I don’t envision Republicans holding the House with 20-plus seats,” he said.
Godfrey also doubted that a Trump administration would be eager to undermine the domestic manufacturing boom that the law’s tax credits have spurred. He noted that at the October 1 vice-presidential debate, J.D. Vance, the Republican Ohio senator and Trump’s running mate, emphasized the need for the U.S. to “consolidate American dominance” in key energy sectors and industries now dominated by China.
While Vance went on to falsely accuse the Biden administration of failing to bolster U.S. industries against China, the goal of emphasizing domestic competitiveness could lead Republicans to avoid undermining progress in that direction, he suggested.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Eric Hovde in the 2024 Senate campaign debate | Screenshot via Youtube
This year’s race to represent Wisconsin in the U.S. Senate presents a stark contrast between incumbent U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and challenger Eric Hovde.
Baldwin, a two-term senator who previously served in Congress for more than a decade and in state and local office before that, faces Hovde, a banker whose only political experience was a failed Republican primary run for the same seat 12 years ago.
Baldwin points to the results of her lifelong work in politics — successful legislation addressing health care coverage, veterans, manufacturing and human rights, and also ambitious measures that have not passed yet.
Hovde is dismissive of Baldwin’s record and depicts his business background as an asset he can use in Washington to benefit Wisconsin. Combative during their only debate on Friday, Oct. 18, as well as in public interviews, he has taken a leaf from the playbook of former President Donald Trump, both in style and in the subject matter that he highlights.
Lilly Goren, Carroll University political science professor
Whether control of the Senate remains with the Democrats or shifts to the Republicans could turn on the outcome of the Wisconsin race, one of a handful getting close scrutiny in this election.
Negative campaigning has been commonplace for decades, but it’s especially prominent in the Baldwin-Hovde race.
“There’s a lot of mud being slung,” says Lilly Goren, political science professor at Carroll University in Waukesha. “It’s not as if we haven’t had mudslinging in Wisconsin politics before, but it feels like there’s a little bit more going on.”
Heavy attacks
From the moment Hovde entered the race, Democrats have pounced on the bank owner’s California connections, starting with his Orange County mansion and his high profile in the Southern California community, where a local publication named him among the county’s “most influential people.” In press releases, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin has taken to calling him Eric Hovde (R-Laguna Beach).
Hovde defends himself as a Wisconsin native and still a legal resident who maintains his voting registration in Madison. At the debate he pulled out a utility bill to prove he has a local address.
Democrats have pushed for Hovde to declare that if elected he would remove himself from SunWest bank, which operates in California but moved its headquarters a few years ago to Utah. In September, the Wisconsin State Journal reported that Hovde said he would “step away” from the bank and was considering whether to put his assets in a blind trust if he goes to Washington.
Hovde, meanwhile, has pushed back with accusations that Baldwin’s partner, Maria Brisbane, an investment and wealth management adviser, puts the senator in a conflict of interest in connection with Baldwin’s Senate oversight roles.
The Senate’s ethics rules don’t address such a relationship, however. When Hovde raised the matter during the debate, Baldwin retorted that “Eric Hovde should stay out of my personal life, and I think I speak for most Wisconsin women that he should stay out of all of our personal lives.”
Reproductive rights
That response alluded to an issue that Baldwin has highlighted repeatedly: abortion and reproductive rights. During a rally with vote canvassers earlier in October, Baldwin recalled that Hovde “celebrated when the Dobbs decision came down” in June 2022 overturning the nationwide right to abortion enshrined in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision a half-century ago.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin mingles with volunteer canvassers preparing to go out and knock on doors on Friday, Oct. 4, 2024 (Erik Gunn | Wisconsin Examiner)
Referring to positions Hovde took in his 2012 GOP primary campaign, she added, “Previously he said he was 100% against abortion, and we have to take him at his word.”
Hovde has endorsed the Dobbs decision outcome for leaving the legality of abortion up to individual states. But he has also appeared to soften somewhat his earlier statements of opposition, saying several times, including in last week’s debate, that “women should have a right to decide early on in their pregnancy,” but not defining what period of time that would involve.
Under Roe, abortion could not be regulated by the state during the first trimester. Later in pregnancy, abortion restrictions were permitted.
During the debate, Hovde accused Baldwin of supporting abortion late in pregnancy, “where a baby can be born healthy and alive,” calling such abortions “unconscionable.” Baldwin quickly shot back, “Eric Hovde, that does not happen in America and it’s very clear that he has never read Roe v. Wade.”
Baldwin has authored legislation to codify the Roe decision. “I’m pushing to have that be the law of the land. Your rights and freedom should not depend on your ZIP code or the state in which you live,” she said.
Notwithstanding the wide range of other subjects that have surfaced in the race, Goren, the Carroll University professor, said in an interview that she’ll be watching how abortion and reproductive rights in the post-Dobbs era continue to play out at the ballot box.
“This is an issue area that both campaigns are focusing on in different ways,” she said. Wisconsin’s 1849 feticide ban — interpreted as an abortion ban for the first year and a half after Roe was rolled back until a Dane County circuit judge ruled that it did not apply to elective abortions — has given the topic new urgency for many women in the state.
Farm bill clash
When asked whether he would support passing the 2023 farm bill during the debate, Hovde answered, “Well, I’m not an expert on the farm bill because I’m not in the U.S. Senate at this point.” Then he launched into a call for farm bills “to get back to farmers” and to address the “regulations that Senator Baldwin and her allies continue to push on them.”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Dan Bice called Hovde’s answer “the worst moment” of the debate.
For Baldwin, it offered a target that allowed her to promote her recent endorsement by the Wisconsin Farm Bureau — the GOP-leaning group’s first endorsement of a Democrat in nearly two decades.
Wisconsin farmers have told her “they’re very eager to have Congress pass a new farm bill,” she said. The hold-up, she added, was that the Republican-controlled U.S. House has “basically eviscerated nutrition programs. Farmers support nutrition programs because it means purchasing their goods.”
Citing one of Hovde’s key talking points — calling for a cutback in federal spending to 2019 levels — she added that it would “cut the U.S. Department of Agriculture by 30% — that is not standing up for our farmers.”
Incumbent’s resume
Challengers typically deploy “career politician” as an epithet, but for Baldwin the term is both accurate and a point of pride. She readily traces some of her key legislative victories through that history.
Daniel Connery, left, Dane County Veterans Service Office director, talks to Sen. Tammy Baldwin at a round table discussion about the PACT Act in May. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
Earlier this year, marking the passage in 2022 of the PACT Act, giving veterans exposed to toxic chemicals in conflicts going back to the Vietnam War greater access to federal benefits, Baldwin recalled her introduction to the issue through a staffer when she was still in the U.S. House.
Likewise, she frequently points to the key role she played in shaping the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
“It was my provision that allowed young people to stay on their parents’ health insurance till they turned 26,” Baldwin said during the debate, repeating a campaign talking point.
Among her most recent trophies is language in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that for the first time empowers Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs. The act also imposes caps on the out-of-pocket expenses Medicare recipients must bear and limits their cost of insulin to $35.
“We need to build upon the Affordable Care Act, and we need to build upon our efforts to negotiate lower prescription drug prices,” Baldwin said during Friday’s debate.
While health care has been among her top concerns, she also directs attention to other parts of her lawmaker’s resume.
Economy and rebuilding U.S. industry
When President Joe Biden’s administration and allies in Congress drew up the CHIPS and Science Act to support the return of technical manufacturing from overseas to the U.S., particularly in the computer chips that gave the legislation its nickname, Baldwin turned to a 2019 Brookings Institution industrial policy report.
Drawing on that document she pitched the inclusion of a “technology hub” program that would direct federal funds to support the development of specialized advanced domestic production projects.
After the bill was enacted, the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. worked with Bio-Forward, a consortium of industries and institutions in the state, to propose a tech hub focused on the emerging science of tailoring medical diagnosis and treatment to the individual genetic profiles of patients. Baldwin championed the Wisconsin entry for a competitive tech hub grant, then joined an event in August toshow off one of the participating businesses.
Those and other major initiatives that emerged from Congress and the White House in the first two years of the Biden administration exemplified a vision that government has a role to play working with the private sector for economic development.
The CHIPS and Science Act’s objective to revitalize domestic tech manufacturing was in the service of national and economic security in the U.S. “That takes a government investment to be able to do that,” said Lisa Johnson, Bio-Forward’s executive director at the August event.
She also has introduced her share of bills that haven’t made it out of even one house of Congress, but in some of those she’s found a measure of victory. In 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission finalized a rule aimed at curbing stealth investors who try to grab control of struggling companies out from under the owners and management in order to make a quick buck.
The rule had its origins in legislation that Baldwin sponsored in 2017 after the shutdown of a paper mill in Wisconsin’s Marathon County led the village where it was located to dissolve. While the bill didn’t advance, some of its language made it into the new SEC rule.
Baldwin’s office enlisted the support of the mill’s displaced executive, who praised the persistence and patience of the senator and her staff in seeing what became the new rule through to enactment.
The story reflects Baldwin’s success at allying with a wide range of constituents with a wide range of concerns — as well as with lawmakers across the aisle, like Republican Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, with whom she’d cosponsored the original legislative proposal.
“I fight for Wisconsin and only Wisconsin,” Baldwin told the debate moderators, “which means I’ll work with Republicans or Democrats, Republican administrations or Democratic administrations — to get the job done for Wisconsin but also stand up to them.”
Tying Baldwin to Biden
Hovde’s campaign has been largely built on three arguments: that the major federal legislation signed by Biden and championed by Baldwin has been not just ineffective but harmful; that immigration is out of control and hurting the country; and that Baldwin has been an ineffective politician with nothing to show for her 12 years in office.
Along with those critiques, he’s presented himself — the scion of developers in Wisconsin and the owner of a $3 billion bank in California, where he owns a $7 million home in Laguna Beach — as an experienced business operator who can bring a fresh face to Washington.
Wisconsin Senate candidate Eric Hovde speaks at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)
In his arguments on the economy and on immigration, Hovde has been largely in step with Trump. Hovde, who received Trump’s enthusiastic endorsement, spoke from the stage at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, even before handily winning his party’s nomination as the designated Senate candidate, and has appeared at numerous other Trump events.
In those public appearances, including last week’s debate, Hovde has attacked the incumbent almost constantly — shaking his head as she answered the questions posted by Wisconsin journalists at the event, then accusing her of lying repeatedly without offering specifics.
Wisconsin Democrats, meanwhile, have run TV ads citing more than a dozen instances in which independent fact-checkers have accused Hovde of lying in ads and public statements.
Hovde has railed against the signature bills Biden helped shape and signed — pandemic relief, the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act.
At the debate Baldwin used Hovde’s opposition to the latter law to charge that Hovde “opposes efforts to negotiate the price of prescription drugs, saving patients and Medicare money.”
Provisions capping the out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare patients and forcing drug companies to negotiate prices were part of the Inflation Reduction Act, she observed.
“My opponent would have voted against that measure. He’s said that many times,” Baldwin said. “We are seeing real reductions in prices that will save both patients money but will also extend the solvency of Medicare.”
Hovde took sharp offense to the assertion that he opposes negotiating drug prices, without addressing his opposition to the law that has made drug price negotiation possible. “I think drug prices are wildly too high and I’ll actually do something about it,” he said, without specifying what his response might be.
Inflation and immigration
Hovde has zeroed in on the 2021-22 inflation spike, blaming it primarily on the Biden legislation. “That’s why inflation got ignited,” he said at Friday’s debate, blaming Baldwin for “reckless spending.”
In addition to attacking Democrats on the economy, Hovde has echoed Trump’s campaign in criticizing Biden for ending a series of Trump executive orders restricting migrants.
Eric Hovde speaks during a WisPolitics.com lunch and interview in August 2024. (Erik Gunn | Wisconsin Examiner)
At Friday’s debate, Hovde threw out figures for migrants in Biden’s first three years in office that added up to 10 million — a number that far exceeds any official estimates from federal agencies or non-government organizations that track immigration policy. He added, “We don’t know how many come in but it’s flooded our streets with fentanyl. We have criminals that have entered into our country and it’s created a humanitarian crisis.”
Political ads supporting Hovde have attacked Baldwin on the immigration issue.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, however, cartels mainly seek to move the drug across the border with the help of U.S. citizens.
Baldwin has endorsed a bipartisan bill that the Biden administration reached with a group of conservative Republican senators but that the U.S. House Republican leaders killed at Trump’s urging.
Hovde has defended killing the bill, calling it a sham. “It wasn’t going to change any of the asylum laws or immigration laws at all,” he said.
Baldwin countered that the defunct legislation was “the toughest border bill that we’ve seen in years,” with provisions to add 1,500 border patrol agents along the Southern U.S. border. It also included technology to scan incoming vehicles for fentanyl.
Prof. Aaron Weinschenk, UW-Green Bay
She charged that Trump, with Hovde’s support, “wanted the political issue” of the immigration controversy. “They wanted the chaos,” she said. “They didn’t want a solution.”
With the attacks and counter-attacks, what started as a 7-point lead for Baldwin in the polls has narrowed considerably, with some polls showing the two neck and neck.
Despite that, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay political scientist Aaron Weinschenk says he believes a Hovde upset is unlikely. Baldwin easily won her last reelection bid in 2018, including in Republican areas like rural Richland and Lafayette counties, which Trump carried in the last two elections but which voted for Baldwin by more than 10 points.
Baldwin “is pretty popular in Wisconsin,” Weinschenk said. “She’s like threaded the needle in appealing to people and you know different parts of the state that maybe you’d think of as being pretty Republican. It might be narrower than previous races, but I’d be surprised if she lost.”
A prospective buyer’s recent commitment to reinvest in a Gary, Indiana, steel plant sought to address union and government leaders’ worries about the sale’s potential impact on jobs and U.S. steelmaking capacity.
The plan to extend the life of the country’s largest and most carbon-emitting coal-fired blast furnace, however, has also heightened concerns from Northwest Indiana residents most affected by the facility’s air pollution.
“This is not acceptable,” said Susan Thomas, director of legislation and policy for Just Transition Northwest Indiana. “We now have technology for doing this much more sustainably.”
A study released Monday quantifies the public health threat highlighted by local clean air advocates, linking the Indiana plant to dozens of annual emergency room visits and premature deaths, as well as thousands of asthma attacks.
Japan-based Nippon Steel is seeking approval from U.S. regulators for a $15 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel, the storied domestic steelmaker whose facilities include the Gary Works plant in Northwest Indiana, along with others in Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, key battleground states where the proposed sale has been a subject of presidential campaigning. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump oppose the sale, as does President Joe Biden.
Much of the public discussion around the proposed sale has centered on its economic and national security implications, but those living near the plant have different concerns and demands. They say they’ve suffered for too long from steel industry pollution, and they only want Nippon as a neighbor if the company installs a new type of furnace that burns with lower or even zero emissions.
“I would love to see Gary Works transform to green sustainable steel, bringing more jobs, cleaning up the area, that would be an amazing win-win,” said Libré Booker, a librarian who grew up near the mill. “The people have lived under these conditions for far too long. It’s definitely time for a change.”
Gary Works is the largest integrated steel mill in North America, employing about 2,200 people. Northwest Indiana is also home to two other steel mills — Burns Harbor and Indiana Harbor — and two coke plants that turn coal into the high-density raw material for steel.
The populations in a three-mile radius of the Gary Works and Indiana Harbor steel mills are 96%-97% people of color, and almost two-thirds low-income people. The new study by Industrious Labs, a nonprofit focused on emissions reduction, used the EPA’s COBRA model to find emissions from the Gary Works plant likely are linked to 57-114 premature deaths, 48 emergency room visits and almost 32,000 asthma attacks each year.
The report cited the mills’ and coke plants’ emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and lead, all pollutants with direct impacts on public health. Gary Works is the number one emitter of PM2.5 particulate matter in the state, according to the company’s self-reported data analyzed by Industrious Labs.
Industrious Labs steel director Hilary Lewis said the results bolster the demands of clean steel advocates, who want to see coal-fired blast furnaces replaced by direct-reduction iron, or DRI, furnaces powered by hydrogen made with renewable energy, known as green hydrogen.
Booker was among 15 locals who participated in a recent “Sustainable Steel Community Cohort” run by Industrious Labs, attending five workshops learning about the science and policy of cleaner steel.
Green hydrogen, green steel
Green hydrogen is still not produced in large quantities anywhere in the U.S., and all the hydrogen currently produced in the country would not even be enough to power one steel mill, noted Seth Snyder, a partner in the Clean Energy Venture Group, at a recent conference in Chicago focused on clean hydrogen.
But DRI furnaces can be powered by natural gas, which results in much lower emissions than coal. Cleveland Cliffs — which owns the Indiana Harbor and Burns Harbor mills — is transforming its Middletown, Ohio steel mill to gas-burning DRI with the help of a $500 million incentive under the Inflation Reduction Act. The company says the conversion will make it the steel mill with the lowest emissions in the world.
With some modifications, DRI furnaces can burn a blend of natural gas and hydrogen or almost entirely hydrogen, experts say, meaning investment in a gas-burning DRI furnace could be a step on the way to “clean steel.” Lewis and other advocates, however, say gas-burning furnaces are not their goal, and they want the industry to transition off fossil fuels entirely.
Hydrogen can be blended into fuel for traditional blast furnaces too, but the maximum emissions reductions that can be achieved that way are 21%, according to a paper on hydrogen-powered steel production in Europe by the Norwegian non-profit science organization Bellona.
Nippon has announced it would invest $300 million in restoring the aging blast furnace at Gary Works, keeping it running for another 20 years. Installing a DRI furnace, meanwhile, typically costs over $1 billion.
“There is a gap,” said Lewis. “But these companies have the funding available. They have the money to make these decisions, they’re just choosing not to.”
Incentives for change
The IRA incentives tapped by Cleveland Cliffs are no longer available, but this summer California U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna introduced the Modern Steel Act, which would provide $10 billion in low-cost loans and grants, plus tax breaks and other incentives for new and revamped low-emissions steel mills, including hydrogen-fueled DRI.
Separately, lucrative tax credits soon to be available for “clean hydrogen” under the IRA could also make hydrogen-powered steel more financially viable. The specific rules for the tax credit — known as 45V — are still being finalized, amid controversy over what should qualify a project’s hydrogen as “clean.”
“There are a number of different incentives in the IRA that can help steel companies build out their own green hydrogen infrastructure,” Lewis said. “Everything should be on the table. Steel companies would be such huge off-takers for green hydrogen, they can build their own economy here.”
At the BP Whiting oil refinery, 10 miles from Gary Works, there are plans underway for production of blue hydrogen, or hydrogen made with natural gas followed by capture and sequestration of the emissions. The plan is a marquee part of the Midwest (MachH2) hydrogen hub, one of seven planned hubs nationwide slated to receive $7 billion total in federal funding. Such blue hydrogen could be used to power a steel mill, with theoretically no resulting greenhouse gas or public health-harming emissions.
However, local environmental and public accountability leaders are strongly opposed to blue hydrogen production in the region, since carbon sequestration has not yet been done successfully on a large scale in the U.S., and it would entail pipelines carrying carbon dioxide from the refinery to a sequestration site.
“The carbon capture component makes us very nervous, it seems to me they’re rushing into this without really taking the time to study it more seriously,” said Northwest Indiana resident Connie Wachala, another graduate of the sustainable steel program. “That might be because of all the money DOE is making available to industry. I wish our elected and industry officials would start thinking more creatively about how to make [green hydrogen] happen, how to make things better for the people in the neighborhoods and around the steel mills as well as for the shareholders.”
A different future
All four of Wachala’s grandparents came from Poland to work in the steel mills.
“Growing up in the 1950s, I remember my mom hanging the laundry up in the yard on a clothes line. If the wind was blowing a certain way, you’d get black particles on the clothes,” remembered Wachala, who worked as a creative writing teacher before retiring. “My dad’s car was always covered with that soot.”
Booker’s mother worked as a crane operator at the now-closed Bethlehem Steel mill in Burns Harbor, Indiana — among the first wave of women of color to be hired.
“I was proud she worked in the mill and took care of us, but I did not want [that job] whatsoever, seeing her come home every night after the swing shift, with the big old boots and jacket,” said Booker. “I wanted to go to college. It was a source of contention with my mom and I for some years.”
That was in the days when locals largely believed, “if you want a good partner, you’ve got to get one that works in the mill,” she continued. “It was like a prestigious job and position. People looked up to people who worked in the mill.”
Now, Booker laments, “Gary is like a joke,” scorned for its economic decline since the steel industry automated and shrunk — hemorrhaging jobs, and for the pollution that is still emitted. If the merger with Nippon does not go through, it’s widely believed U.S. Steel would eventually close the mill, as it closed its South Works plant in Southeast Chicago decades ago. At their height, the South Works and Gary Works plants together employed about 40,000 people in the Chicago area.
Thomas wrote a frustrated rebuttal to the Chicago Tribune editorial board opining that the Nippon merger was crucial to Gary’s future. She and other local leaders say they don’t want the mill to close, but they can demand better than the extension of heavily polluting industry.
“It’s just perpetuation of this as a sacrifice zone,” said Thomas. “‘This is what you’ve always been, this is how we’re going to keep you.’ But that’s not going to fly anymore.”
Racine Mayor Cory Mason, photographed in the outdoor, rooftop lounge at the Hotel Verdant in Downtown Racine. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
For Racine Mayor Corey Mason, a small park studded with boulders on the shore of Lake Michigan just south of the city’s downtown is an object lesson on the impact of climate change.
In January 2020, a 100-year storm demolished at least one-third of Sam Myers Park. “If you’d been here at the time, you would have seen a lot of these boulders on the street,” Mason said at a morning press conference on the park grounds last week.
“Climate change, if we don’t address it, is expensive,” Mason said. “We are seeing more frequent and more powerful storms, and the cost of upsizing our wastewater pipes or making a more resilient and powerful lakefront becomes an important investment that we have to make.”
This report is part of an occasional series of Wisconsin Examiner stories reporting on the impact of Biden administration economic policies on Wisconsin.
While the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) paid for the restoration, the park served as a backdrop last week for Mason to describe how the city has benefitted from other federal programs: three signature laws passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden over the last four years.
Between the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the bipartisan infrastructure law in 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, Racine has gotten a formidable amount of federal support.
“Those three together are sort of the holy trinity of federal legislation,” Mason said in an interview. “They’ve just been so transformational for us. I don’t know how we’d have gotten through Covid without them.”
ARPA, the pandemic relief program that was enacted in the first three months of Biden’s term, funded incentives the city used to encourage residents to get the first vaccine for COVID-19, which was just becoming available then. The city’s ARPA allotment also helped it fund programs for youth employment and adult high school, Mason said.
Some $38 million in ARPA money — $20 million from the state and $18 million from the city’s direct allotment — are helping to finance a newcommunity and health center in Racine’s Lincoln-King neighborhood just west of Downtown.
A $9.8 million infusion from the bipartisan infrastructure law will cover more than 70% of design and construction costs to repave a stretch of one of Racine’s main north-south arteries and put new concrete on three other streets. Some of that money is also covering 80% of the cost of bridge repairs and additional street repairs.
In the coming year, Mason said, the law will fund Racine’s first “smart street” project — reconfiguring streets to be more walkable, adding bike lanes and curb bump-out features that require drivers to slow down “instead of four big lanes where people drive in as fast as they can in each direction.”
And the mayor singles out federal support for strong sustainability measures in the city. The sources of those measures are climate and clean energy provisions in the infrastructure law along with the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes extensive renewable energy and energy conservation provisions.
Racine has been electrifying the city’s bus fleet. The first nine electric buses were purchased from Racine’s share of a national legal settlement with Volkswagen over allegations the automaker cheated on federal emissions tests. The city is buying four more buses, funded through the infrastructure law, at which point the bus fleet will be 40% electric.
A new solar station is planned to recharge the mass transit vehicles. Construction is expected to start in the first half of 2025, with $1.2 million of its cost paid for from ARPA.
Federal government: From uninterested to policy ally
Climate change was a priority of Mason’s from when was first elected seven years ago. He committed the city to following the Paris Climate Accords.
Former President Donald Trump was in the White House at the time and withdrew from the accords in 2017. With federal policymakers uninterested in addressing climate change, Mason said, he looked elsewhere for support.
An electric city bus was the centerpiece for a city of Racine press conference Sept. 26 to discuss the city’s sustainability investments made possible by federal funds. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
He joined the bipartisan Climate Mayors organization, municipal chief executives concerned about what many viewed as the central environmental concern of the time. He found the group invaluable for sharing ideas and learning what could work.
“You hear people, ‘Oh, you can’t do police cars that are electric,’” Mason said. “And then you go to a conference, and here’s 12 that are using electric vehicles as police cars.”
He welcomed the sharp federal turnaround on climate policy when Biden entered the White House in 2021.
“I can’t … emphasize enough just what a transformation it has been to have real partners at the federal government,” Mason told reporters at last week’s press event. He called the infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act “generational pieces of legislation.”
The city started its work on renewable energy and energy conservation several years before either of those bills were on the national agenda. Nearly 20 years ago the city installed solar cells near a municipal annex building. In 2020 it leased a 2.6 acre patch of a South Side industrial park to Wisconsin Electric Power Co. to build a solar array.
Racine has been retrofitting municipal buildings, 70 years old on average, with energy-saving measures such as better insulation, which climate experts say shouldn’t be overlooked in the quest to reduce carbon emissions.
The infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act have helped turbocharge those efforts. Besides big projects like the park rehabilitation and the new electric buses, the city has also benefited from much smaller ones.
Homeowners and businesses have been eligible for tax credits to help cover the cost of what they spend on energy conservation. Nonprofit groups and municipalities can’t claim tax credits (they don’t pay taxes), but through the Inflation Reduction Act’s direct pay program, they can get the same sort of reimbursement.
“Having a check sent back to you for 30% to 60% of the costs is just transformational,” Mason said.
Green investment nets developer tax credits
The city hasn’t been the only beneficiary of the act.
Five years ago, Milwaukee developer Mike O’Connor paid a visit to Racine and happened upon what had once been a major downtown department store. Unoccupied since the 1980s, the building had been partially renovated for a nonprofit, but that project was abandoned. “It was kind of a raw canvas — it was pretty well ready to go,” O’Connor said in an interview.
Developer Mike O’Connor shows off the green roof of the Hotel Verdant in Downtown Racine on Thursday, Sept. 26. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
O’Connor and his business partner built their business, Dominion Properties, starting in the early 2000s with a focus on apartment buildings. Central to their business plan was lowering operating expenses by “chasing efficiency” on heating and related costs — adding insulation and high-efficiency furnaces.
In 2014 they went further, building a 20-unit apartment to meethigh-efficiency standards known as LEED (for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) set by the U.S. Green Building Council.
Lenders weren’t interested in an apartment block, O’Connor’s first idea for the Racine building, and there was no market for office space, he said. Then the pair hit on the idea of a boutique hotel — a standard feature in many historic downtown neighborhoods worldwide but nonexistent in Racine.
The city welcomed the proposal, seeing it as a likely draw for tourists as well as an asset that the city’s corporate leaders would value for visiting business travelers.
“We thought if we’re going to build, we’re going to build sustainably,” O’Connor said. “That fit well with what the mayor’s vision was.”
The 80-room Hotel Verdant opened a year ago. It’s heated with geothermal energy and boasts a rooftop full of solar panels that cover most of agreen roof planted with sedum. The plant is a source of shade as well as a feature to reduce temperatures on the roof surface and in the surrounding air.
The hotel project preceded the Inflation Reduction Act, but this year the federal law provided an unexpected benefit: Dominion Properties qualified for green energy tax credits, and was able to resell the credits to a third party, O’Connor said.
Projects yet to come
More projects are on the drawing board. Racine will announce a new municipal building that meets “net-zero” standards, meaning its operation does not produce emissions that add to the carbon already going into the atmosphere. And the city’s water and wastewater utilities are on the verge of planning a major investment in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions as well.
That idea came from a Climate Mayors colleague, Mason said. But he’s counting on the federal infrastructure and the inflation act’s climate programs to make it possible.
“More than half the energy the city consumes is from our water and wastewater utilities,” Mason said. “Without something like the bipartisan infrastructure law, it’s nearly impossible to imagine — how would you get to a net-zero water and wastewater utility? But now we are seeing other communities across the country that are using the [Inflation Reduction Act] and the infrastructure law to do exactly that.”
Racine’s climate sustainability focus extends to the city’s policy with developers — and it has courted developers who share that perspective.
When a developer proposed a new apartment complex on a riverfront corner downtown, city officials included a requirement for 5% of the parking to have electric vehicle charging stations. “And the developer was like, ‘Well, at least — we’re going to need more than that,’” Mason said.
Developers and key local employers have told him they view expanded EV charging capacity as an important amenity to draw customers or prospective employees. “We want to help incentivize that for local businesses here who want to be able to do that,” Mason said.
Even with the growing private sector interest, he sees an important role for government to play spurring the growth of renewable energy.
“I think the more we can get ahead of the market, the more we get a competitive advantage by having those resources available for people who want to live here or work here,” Mason said.
Health care advocate Laura Packard speaks at a Protect Our Care press conference Tuesday, Sept. 24. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
Nearly 15 years after passage of the landmark federal law that expanded health care access across the country, health care remains a fixture on the ballot almost every November election.
This year is no exception. For advocates, health care is a central issue in both the national presidential campaign and in Wisconsin’s newly competitive contest for the state Legislature.
Sooner or later, virtually every American faces a struggle over how to pay for health care, Leslie Dach of Protect Our Care said during a visit to Madison Tuesday. Dach, a health advisor to President Barack Obama, founded Protect Our Care in 2017 to advocate for maintaining and strengthening federal health programs including the ACA.
“When you get sick, it takes over your life,” Dach said in an interview. “There’s no larger kitchen table issue in America. And it’s expensive, and a lot of people don’t have access to the care that they need, and so it’s a problem that affects really everybody — maybe not every day, but catches up with you at some point in your life.”
Besides being a personal issue, “it’s also a political issue now,” Dach added. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) remains under threat from Republican lawmakers. Some have also called forrepealing all or part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, including provisions making health insurance cheaper and allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs.
“The choices are very clear, and it’s both emotional and economic for people,” Dach said.
The Protect Our Care bus, which is touring 17 states as part of an advocacy campaign to preserve and strengthen the Affordable Care Act. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
He was in Wisconsin for the second stop on the organization’s bus tour — a campaign to draw attention to the health care law’s increasing popularity and how it has been improved through laws such as the Inflation Reduction Act.
The Inflation Reduction Act extended tax credits that reduce the cost of health insurance policies that people buy on the ACA’s health insurance exchange through 2025.
Those credits have cut health insurance premiums by an average of $2,400 a year, said Joe Zepecki, Wisconsin representative for Protect Our Care, at a press conference outside the Protect Our Care campaign bus.
The 2022 law also capped insulin costs for Medicare patients at $35 a month and authorized Medicare to negotiate select drug prices. Starting in January, it will cap Medicare patients’ out-of-pocket drug costs at $2,000 a year.
“It is essential that everyone understands how they can benefit from these savings,” Zepecki said. “These policies are overwhelmingly popular. They touch nearly every household in America, whether you’re a senior or an individual struggling with a disability who’s having a hard time affording prescription drugs, a family purchasing your own health coverage, or a taxpayer who is sick and tired of lining the pockets of big drug companies.”
The Affordable Care Act also prevented insurers from rejecting patients or charging them higher premiums because of pre-existing health conditions — a practice that was routine until the ACA took effect.
“Insurance companies analyzed people with chronic conditions like cancer,” said Dr. Sophie Kramer, a Wisconsin physician for 35 years. “If you were born with a genetic heart condition or developed multiple sclerosis in your 30s, you were often out of luck.”
Prevention and protection
Without the ACA in place, “many people had to take the risk of no health insurance or opt for expensive, extremely high deductible plans,” Kramer said. Preventive care such as mammograms to detect breast cancer or colon cancer screenings are often treated as out-of-pocket costs until the ACA required coverage for a number of preventive health care measures, she added.
“The passage of the ACA changed this,” Kramer said. “Since 2014 … one in seven Americans and over 800,000 in Wisconsin have benefited from the ACA. This is tremendous progress.”
Despite that progress, she and others noted, Republican politicians have continued to bad-mouth the ACA and run on promises to repeal it.
“Donald Trump has talked about terminating the Affordable Care Act in this campaign,” said Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, who after first taking office in 2019 withdrew the state from a lawsuit to block the ACA and joined a friend of the court brief to support the health care law. “Let’s be clear, there’s no replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act.”
Kaul referred to Trump’s statement at the Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for president, about what he would do to replace the ACA after working to repeal it.
“Donald Trump recently said he has ‘concepts of a plan,’ after nearly a decade of his candidacy and as President,” Kaul said. “So there’s no plan to protect people with preexisting conditions. There’s no plan to ensure that costs remain low.”
Protections for people with preexisting conditions are at risk, he added, “and it’s clear that we’re facing further restrictions on access to safe and legal abortion.”
Laura Packard, a health care advocate taking part in the bus campaign who has supported the ACA for helping her survive and get treatment for a cancer diagnosis, said that after Trump’s statement about “concepts,” his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) “laid out what some of those concepts are.”
A Vance proposal to replace preexisting condition protections with “high-risk pools” for those patients “would allow insurance companies to pick and choose their customers again,” Packard said. As one of 135 million Americans with a preexisting condition, she added, “if insurance companies had the choice, they would choose not to cover us. And we need health insurance to stay healthy and to stay alive.”
Zepecki said the Protect Our Care bus will travel 12,000 miles and visit 17 states “with a simple message — lower costs are here and we are not going back.”
Legislative endorsements
Advocating for the ACA is just one example of the way health care policy is on the political agenda this fall.
The Committee to Protect Health Care (a separate advocacy group) announced Tuesday a $500,000 ad buy and its endorsements in this fall’s Wisconsin Legislature races.
The committee consists of doctors, other health care professionals and other advocates. It is targeting a dozen Assembly and Senate races with digital video ads, direct mail and text messages directed at about 300,000 Wisconsin voters in the 12 districts.
The group’s health policy agenda includes expanding Medicaid, known as BadgerCare in Wisconsin, under the ACA and extending Medicaid coverage for new mothers for the first 12 months after they give birth.
The committee’s priorities also include support for a state board empowered to reduce the cost of prescription drugs in Wisconsin, support for a paid family and medical leave program, and measures to ensure that decisions about reproductive care are made by patients and medical providers.
The group calls for repealing an 1849 law that caused abortion providers to cease practicing in Wisconsin for a year and a half, for fear of felony prosecution, until a judge ruled in 2023 that it did not pertain to abortion, and enacting guarantees for access to contraception.
All of those measures have been proposed in the Wisconsin Legislature in one form or another by Democratic lawmakers but rejected by the Legislature’s Republican majority, the committee noted in its announcement.
Candidates supported by the ad campaign as well as the longer list of endorsed legislative candidates were selected for their support of the organization’s agenda, according to the committee.
“For too long, our state legislators have refused to expand BadgerCare and repeal our state’s archaic, harmful abortion ban,” said Dr. Ann Helms, a Committee to Protect Health Care Wisconsin leader and a neurologist. “These candidates have an opportunity to finally take action, granting health care access to tens of thousands of Wisconsinites and ensuring all women in the state can access the reproductive health care they need.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced in September it will distribute $7.3 billion in grants and loans for rural clean energy projects serving 23 states. (Photo courtesy of the National Center for Appropriate Technology and the Agrisolar Clearinghouse | USDA)
Pennsylvania wants to remain a manufacturing powerhouse. But state leaders also want to reduce climate change-causing emissions from steel mills and other industrial facilities, while cutting back the toxic pollutants that cause health problems in nearby neighborhoods.
Thanks to a nearly $400 million investment from the federal government, the state is preparing a massive plan to help industrial operators upgrade to new technologies and switch to cleaner fuel sources.
“Pennsylvania was one of the birthplaces of the industrial revolution, and now we’ve been given the opportunity to lead the nation in the industrial decarbonization movement,” said Louie Krak, who is coordinating the plan for the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Leaders in every state in the country have their own big plans. North Carolina and neighboring states are preparing to restore wetlands and conserve natural areas along the Atlantic coast. Iowa leaders intend to plant trees in neighborhoods that lack shade. Local governments in Texas plan to help residents install solar panels on their rooftops. And Utah is readying to purchase electric buses and reduce methane emissions at oil and gas operations.
All of these plans are backed by federal money from the Inflation Reduction Act, the climate law passed by Congress in 2022. But former President Donald Trump, who has called climate change measures a “scam” and vowed to rescind “unspent” funds under the law, could throw much of that work into chaos if he retakes the White House.
Legal experts say Trump couldn’t outright cancel the law without an act of Congress. But climate leaders say a Trump administration could create extra barriers for grant awards, slow the approval of tax credits and delay loan requests. If the federal support becomes unreliable, projects could lose financing from the private sector and cease to be viable.
“Even if the money is technically safe, we would definitely expect to see agencies [in a Trump administration] dragging their feet,” said Rachel Jacobson, lead researcher of state climate policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank.
Federal agencies have already announced plans to award $63 billion — mostly in the form of grants — to states, nonprofits and other entities for a host of projects to fight climate change, according to Atlas Public Policy, a climate-focused research group. Many Republican-led states have, for the first time, drafted plans to fight climate change in order to compete for the money.
In addition, the feds are rolling out billions more in loans and tax credits aimed at similar projects. States say the mix of funding sources and financial incentives that will soon be available could supercharge efforts to fight climate change and create green jobs.
Many states whose projects have been approved say they’re urging the feds to issue their funding before the election.
“There’s a risk that an incoming administration could cancel our agreement,” said Krak, adding that Pennsylvania is hoping to finalize its funding award this fall.
Another $30 billion from the law is still up for grabs, much of it aimed at reducing emissions in the agricultural sector. And agencies have just begun offering loans and tax credits to provide hundreds of billions more in financing.
“So many states have climate plans for the first time [because of the federal law],” said Ava Gallo, climate and energy program manager with the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, a collaborative forum for state lawmakers. “Even states that weren’t supportive of the Inflation Reduction Act are certainly touting these projects.”
State plans
In July, Utah learned that it would be receiving nearly $75 million to carry out its climate plan. The program will pay for electric school and transit buses, help residents purchase electric vehicles and install equipment to reduce methane emissions at oil and gas operations, among many other components.
By 2050, the investments are expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1.4 million metric tons, said Glade Sowards, who is coordinating the plan for the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. Sowards said the plan was also designed to reduce pollution that harms public health.
Even states that weren’t supportive of the Inflation Reduction Act are certainly touting these projects.
– Ava Gallo, climate and energy program manager with the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators
North Carolina is focused on protecting natural areas. The state filed a joint plan with Maryland, South Carolina and Virginia that is set to receive $421 million in federal funding. The coalition plans to conserve and restore more than 200,000 acres in coastal areas in the four states. While the natural lands are valuable for pulling carbon from the air, the funding will also help to expand state parks and protect residents from flooding.
Like many of the state projects supported through the climate law, the four-state plan has been announced as a recipient but the funding agreement is still being finalized. State leaders are urging the feds to complete that this fall.
“We want to get this done quickly for two reasons: one, so we can get the work underway, but two, to make sure that the money will be there [before a new administration could threaten it],” said Reid Wilson, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
The federal law also will pay for trees in urban areas, where they can reduce the dangerous “heat island” effect and limit stormwater runoff and air pollution. Iowa earned a pair of grants totaling more than $5 million to increase tree canopy in its cities.
“We’ve never had this level of funding before,” said Emma Hanigan, urban forestry coordinator with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. “We have a really low canopy cover, one of the lowest in the nation.”
Another nationwide program is set to offer funding in all 50 states to help residents put solar panels on their rooftops or buy into community solar operations. In Texas, a coalition of municipalities and nonprofits, led by Harris County (which includes Houston), earned a nearly $250 million award to carry out that work.
The program will largely focus on disadvantaged communities, with a requirement that solar projects reduce participants’ energy bills by at least 20%. Leaders in Texas expect the investment to reach about 28,000 households.
States are also tasked with distributing rebates to help residents with their home energy needs. Wisconsin was the first state to bring its rebate program online, with $149 million in funding. Residents can receive up to $10,000 to improve insulation, upgrade appliances or install electric heat pumps. Over time, they will see greater savings in the form of lower energy bills.
“It’s nice [for a contractor] to be able to sit at the kitchen table and say, ‘You’re getting $3,000 of work here, but the state is paying $2,800,’” said Joe Pater, director of the Office of Energy Innovation with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin.
Three other states (Arizona, New Mexico and New York) have rebate programs up and running, and others are finalizing applications. Indiana is among the many states awaiting federal approval to launch its program. The state expects to offer $182 million in rebates starting in early 2025. Greg Cook, communications manager with the Indiana Office of Energy Development, said the state is hoping to execute its plan regardless of the election outcome.
The climate law also has boosted “green banks,” which are state or nonprofit-run institutions that finance climate-friendly projects. The nonprofit Coalition for Green Capital received $5 billion of the federal money, which it will use to build a network that includes a green bank in each state, said Reed Hundt, the group’s CEO.
Michigan Saves, a nonprofit bank, expects to receive $95 million as a sub-award from the coalition. Chanell Scott Contreras, the president and CEO of Michigan Saves, said the “unprecedented” funding will enable the bank to expand its work, which includes helping low-income residents weatherize their homes and financing electric vehicle chargers and solar installations.
Loans and tax credits
The grants given out to states and other entities are just the start. The climate law supersized a federal loan program for clean energy projects, bringing its lending authority to $400 billion. And a new mechanism known as elective pay will now allow states, cities and nonprofits to receive the clean energy tax credits that have long been available to the private sector.
Climate advocates say many of the plans that states are setting in motion rely on the financing and tax rebates — components of the law that are most vulnerable to political interference.
“If an administration wanted to completely thwart the ability of [the Department of Energy] to make those loans, they could do so,” said Annabelle Rosser, a policy analyst with Atlas Public Policy, which has been tracking the rollout of the climate law. “That could be cut off at the knees.”
Meanwhile, many states are relying on the new tax credit to support plans such as electrifying state vehicle fleets and installing solar panels on public schools. In Washington state, for instance, the Office of Financial Management is coordinating a governmentwide effort to ensure state agencies use elective pay to bolster their climate work.
But climate advocates fear that an Internal Revenue Service led by Trump appointees could stall that work.
“There’s a lot of concern about what [Trump] would do with IRS staffing to limit the ability for them to get the refund checks out,” said Jillian Blanchard, director of the climate change and environmental justice program with Lawyers for Good Government, a nonprofit focused on human rights. Such delays could “chill hundreds of thousands of projects,” she said.
“I’m not sure he knows that red states are counting on this money too.”
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.
A federal grant will help four of Ohio’s largest cities collaborate on new voluntary building performance standards and a resource hub to help commercial building owners save energy and cut emissions.
Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, and Dayton will use $10 million in Inflation Reduction Act funding to establish the Ohio High Performance Building Hub, which will connect building owners with technical guidance, financing solutions, incentives, training, and other support.
Clean energy advocates and city sustainability leaders hope the program will offer a new path forward in a state where buildings account for about one-fourth of greenhouse gas emissions but state lawmakers have gutted mandatory energy efficiency measures. The state ranked 44th in a recent state energy efficiency policy report card.
“All four of those cities have ambitious climate goals, and addressing existing buildings is a crucial part of that,” said Nat Ziegler, a program manager with Power a Clean Future Ohio, which is a partner on the grant. They expect lessons learned from the work and the hub can eventually help other cities and towns in Ohio and across the Midwest.
Buildings account for a significant share of greenhouse gas emissions in the four cities participating in the grant: greater than 60% for Cincinnati and from 50% to 55% for Cleveland, Columbus and Dayton. The new program will specifically target emissions from more than 421 million square feet of commercial building space among the four cities.
“This is a great way to really jump-start a lot of that work,” said Erin Beck, assistant director for Sustainable Columbus.
The hub could help building owners navigate funding under the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as through bonds issued by the Ohio Air Quality Development Agency or local port authorities or lending from green banks or more traditional financial institutions.
Standards vs. codes
Existing building energy codes “apply primarily to new construction and major renovations, which is great. But most buildings already exist, right?” said Amanda Webb, an assistant professor of architectural engineering at the University of Cincinnati, which was the lead recipient of an earlier $2.9 million grant focused on developing technical guidance for the voluntary standards.
Work under both Department of Energy grants focuses on “coming up with a way to help really deliver the benefits of energy efficiency to existing buildings at scale,” Webb said.
The standards will differ from more general guidelines such as the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED program, which largely emphasize new construction and a broader range of sustainability measures than energy use and emissions.
Cities will use the technical guidance from the work by Webb’s group and results from outreach to develop standards, rather than codes. The difference is codes are mandatory, with penalties for violations, whereas standards are not.
“The approach that we’re taking with this is definitely much more of a carrot approach” than a stick, said Robert McCracken, who heads up energy management for the Office of Environment & Sustainability in Cincinnati, which is the lead partner on the project.
The reasons are largely legal, as well as political. Over the past decade, leadership in the Ohio General Assembly has generally opposed imposing requirements to cut pollution, and a bill for utilities to provide voluntary energy efficiency programs still has not passed.
As a legal matter, cities generally can’t adopt building codes stricter than those established by the Ohio Board of Building Standards. However, the board doesn’t have authority to set requirements for benchmarking emissions or performance standards for existing buildings. The cities’ grant application said the board confirmed that a delegation of authority won’t be needed, as long as they don’t adopt new construction codes.
Energy efficiency provides its own incentives for building owners, because “it saves money,” said Oliver Kroner, who heads up Cincinnati’s Office of Environment & Sustainability. “People are generally aligned with the [city’s] climate commitments. But there’s sometimes the gap with what you want to do and how to get there.”
Lower costs for building owners can also let them charge lower rents, which can attract tenants. “We frequently receive inquiries from companies who are considering relocating, and they’re interested in the climate effort here,” Kroner said.
Ziegler said many of their organization’s 50 local government members also have shown interest in getting help for cutting building emissions. The independent hub to be set up under the new grant will really help building owners with the “nuts and bolts” for meeting their city’s building performance standards, they said.
Columbus is the only one of the four cities with a benchmarking policy right now, and the plan calls for the others to adopt their own versions as well. Benchmarking will be key for letting the cities track progress in reducing energy use. Based on existing commercial building stock in each city, the team members estimate cutting energy use 45% by 2050, the grant application materials said.
Beck said the Columbus benchmarking program has “been very successful,” noting the city has worked with building owners to help them comply. Audits done as part of the process have also identified “low hanging fruit” for adding energy efficiency through LED lighting, thermostat adjustments and so on, she noted.
Equity issues
Equity concerns also factor into the choice of standards versus codes. Businesses in historically disinvested communities already face a variety of financial and other challenges.
“We want this to be a benefit rather than yet another burden that’s imposed on them,” Ziegler said.
Webb’s team is also exploring how building performance standards could be tailored up front to address concerns about affordability. Possibilities could include a metric to reflect greater equity needs or measures to ensure tenants as well as owners benefit from savings.
“We have other grants that are focused on workforce development,” Kroner said, adding his hope that many people from underserved communities will be able to work in jobs to help buildings meet building performance standards once they’re adopted.
As work by Webb’s group continues, the four cities and others will gear up for outreach efforts and other work so they’re ready to adopt standards. “There’s going to be a lot of education and outreach in the beginning,” McCracken said.
More than a year after 5 Lakes Energy released a report detailing more than $7.8 billion in federal investments available to fuel Michigan’s transition to clean energy, the consulting firm is taking stock of the state’s energy economy following the passage of multiple laws based on Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s climate plan.
In November, the Democratic-led Michigan Legislature voted through a host of policies including goals for transitioning the state to 100% clean energy by 2040 and increasing the state’s energy waster reduction standards and efforts intended to streamline the permitting process by allowing the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) to approve large scale renewable energy projects provided they meet state requirements.
“The future of our energy sector — and a significant part of our economy — lies in clean energy. This report highlights how investments in clean energy fuels robust job growth across the U.S. energy sector, with Michigan playing a key role,” state Sen. Sue Shink (D-Northfield Twp.) said in a statement.
“Our historic Clean Energy Future legislation has positioned Michigan as a national leader in the fight against climate change, reducing household utility cost and safeguarding our air, water and public health, while creating good-paying jobs for people. This report proves that prioritizing clean energy isn’t just good for the environment — it’s also a powerful boost for our economy and American workers,” said Shink, who was a lead sponsor of one of the bills in the clean energy package.
By examining the interactions between the Inflation Reduction Act and Michigan’s suite of clean energy legislation, the report estimates Michigan families will save an average of $297 a year on their energy bill by 2030 and $713 a year by 2040 compared to if these policies were not enacted, saving Michiganders more than was predicted in the previous report.
Additionally, Michigan will bring in $15.6 billion in investments from the Inflation Reduction Act by 2030 and $30.7 billion by 2040. The state will also shrink its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 65% over the next six years, down 88% by 2040.
Michigan is also projected to save $7.3 billion by 2030 in avoided public health costs — such as deaths, hospitalizations and lost school and work days — with savings across the state totaling $27.8 billion by 2040.
The report also broke down the economic impact of these policies on a more local level, breaking the state into 10 regions and examining the projected growth of jobs and the gross domestic product of those regions.
Alongside breaking down the economic impacts by region, the report also polled and interviewed 20 members of the Michigan Energy Innovation Business Council, a trade organization focused on supporting innovative energy technology.
In the survey, 75% of companies indicated they were hiring or understaffed, with 90% indicating they would need to hire or they would be understaffed in the next three years.
To further support Michigan’s clean energy, the report shares policy recommendations including additional state policies advancing the growth of clean energy and decarbonizing the state’s building and transportation sectors in line with Whitmer’s MI Healthy Climate Plan, continued investment into clean energy projects and monitoring and evaluation to ensure energy goals are met.
The report also advises lawmakers to enact a new policy on conducting cumulative impact assessments to determine the effects of retiring existing energy assets and building new projects, to ensure communities of color and low income communities and communities with a history of disinvestment can reap the benefits of clean energy.
Additionally, it recommends taking steps to reduce the amount households spend on their energy bills by ensuring that cost reductions for energy utilities translate into savings for customers.
In its final recommendation the report calls on the state to develop workforce training programs in support of the clean energy sector, placing a focus on ensuring opportunities for those transitioning away from traditional energy industries like those based in fossil fuels.
Minnesota clean energy and economic development officials say a Canadian solar manufacturer’s planned expansion in the state shows the impact of federal climate incentives for domestic production.
Pete Wyckoff, assistant commissioner of federal and state initiatives for the Minnesota Department of Commerce, said Heliene’s announcement that it plans to onshore solar cell manufacturing in partnership with an Indian supplier shows the Inflation Reduction Act “is doing what it is designed to do, which is to provide incentives to encourage every step in the solar manufacturing process to occur domestically.”
In late July, Heliene said it had reached a joint venture agreement with Premier Energies, India’s second-largest solar cell manufacturing company, to build a solar cell manufacturing facility somewhere in the Twin Cities. Heliene also has a plant in northern Minnesota, where it assembles solar panel modules using imported cells from Premier Energies.
Several U.S. factories assemble solar panel modules — think of the rectangular boxes you’d see installed on a rooftop. Almost all of these domestic manufacturers, though, depend on imported solar cells — the half-foot square slices of silicon that actually do the work of converting sunlight to electricity.
The Inflation Reduction Act prompted a flurry of announcements related to domestic solar cell production, but its viability here remains unclear, Renewable Energy World recently reported. Multiple companies have already retracted plans for U.S. solar cell factories, citing market challenges.
Meeting installer demands
Heliene CEO Martin Pochtaruk said its planned solar cell plant is meant to meet clients’ demand for modules with higher levels of domestic content, which allow project developers to claim more lucrative incentives. After solar owners receive a standard 30% tax credit for projects, they can add another 10% by using modules with equipment made in the United States.
“Strong solar cell manufacturing offers solar developers a higher percentage of U.S.-made domestic content components for their projects, reduces reliance on imports, and releases stress on our supply chain,” Pochtaruk said.
He said working with Premier on establishing an American beachhead that could employ more than 200 workers makes sense because the Inflation Reduction Act rewards solar panels made primarily with parts made in the U.S. solar cells.
Solar developers must use panels with a domestic content of 40% or more for the bonus, and the threshold will increase to 55% in 2026.
In August, Heliene agreed to a multi-year contract with NorSun to supply low-carbon wafers — one of the building blocks of solar cells — for all the company’s solar panels starting in 2026.
Heliene has also announced a partnership with UGE, a community and commercial solar and battery storage developer, to provide panels that meet the requirements of the Domestic Content Investment Tax Credit (ITC) Bonus.
Heliene said in a press release that it would manage construction, finances, supply chain logistics, regulatory oversight, and human resources. Premier will provide cell technology engineering, manufacturing expertise, supply-side agreements, and raw material vendor relationships.
Pochtaruk said Heliene’s commitment to buy material from Premier Energies and NorSun was instrumental in their ability to finance the new factories. He asked both to try to open in 2026 when the content bonus requires more American-made content.
Jeremy Kalin, a Minneapolis attorney who works with several solar developers, said his clients are seeking panel suppliers with enough content to take the additional 10% tax credit. Manufacturers must provide a guarantee that the panels reach the threshold of having at least 55% of the panels’ components American-made.
“Once they meet that requirement, they will see a flood of business,” Kalin said.
An assembly line at Heliene’s solar module assembly plant in Mountain Iron, Minnesota. (courtesy photo) Credit: Heliene
Could Minnesota be a solar manufacturing center?
Minnesota Solar Energy Industries Association business development and communications director Abbi Morgan said the company’s presence “is huge and something we’re excited about because Minnesota is often overlooked when it comes to clean energy.”
So far, though, Heliene’s Minnesota operations have yet to attract other solar manufacturers. Morgan said one of the association’s members, a German firm, opened a factory in Arizona. At least among the association’s more than 170 members, plenty have expressed interest in buying panels from Heliene.
“There are a lot of members who ask about Heliene, but we’ve heard they have a long waiting list even though they expanded their factory in Mountain Iron,” Morgan said.
After securing a $3.5 million state loan package in 2018, Heliene began manufacturing and assembling panels in a once-shuttered solar module plant in Mountain Iron. The former plant, Silicon Energy, failed despite state investments of millions of dollars.
The plant is in a business park created to attract green energy companies across the street from a taconite mine. Two years ago, the company spent $21 million to triple the production space through an addition to the plant. Heliene spent $9.5 million to pay for the expansion and received most of the rest through state loans and a county grant.
Now, the company has shifted attention to adding capacity in central Minnesota, where it will begin developing two solar module manufacturing lines in an existing 227,000-square-foot warehouse in Rogers, a burgeoning exurb northwest of Minneapolis.
Before preparing the warehouse for solar production, Heliene is waiting to hear whether the project will receive money from the Minnesota Investment Fund (MIF) and Job Creation Fund (JCF). State officials were expected to make an announcement in September.
Rogers Community Development Director Brett Angell said Heliene will fit into the city’s growing reputation as a hub for sustainable enterprises. The company plans to employ at least 180 people and spend $16 million on building improvements and equipment.
“Additionally, (Heliene) would continue to add to the growing segment of sustainable manufacturers within the community as the city currently is home to multiple plastic recycling companies,” Angell said.
Heliene has not selected a site for the solar cell manufacturing plant or provided details on how much investment and employment it will create. Pochtaruk said the building will be significantly larger than the solar module plant.
DALTON, Ga. — Growing up in Cartersville, Georgia, Lisa Nash saw what happens to communities when factory jobs disappear. It was the 1980s and corporations were offshoring production to reduce costs and raise profits. The jobs that remained in this northwest corner of the state were typically lower-paying ones that didn’t offer the same ladder to the middle class.
“My parents and grandparents were in manufacturing, and they were the ones saying, ‘Don’t do it,’” Nash recalled.
Nash disregarded their advice, embarking instead on a long career in manufacturing — first in textiles, followed by stints in aviation, automotive, and steel. Now she’s helping to bring higher-tech, higher-paying factory work back to the corridor between Atlanta and Chattanooga.
Nash is the general manager of the Qcells solar panel factory in Dalton, a town of 34,000 located 50 miles up I-75 from her hometown. It opened in January 2019, after the Trump administration imposed a fresh round of tariffs on Chinese-made panels. The Korean conglomerate Hanwha owns Qcells, and initially planned to hire several hundred people at the site, Nash told me on a recent visit to the factory. By the end of 2019, it employed more than 800.
Then, in 2020, Georgia helped elect President Joe Biden and sent two Democrats to the Senate, clinching a thin majority. Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock got to work crafting detailed policies to promote domestic manufacturing of clean energy technologies, which China had dominated for years; they wanted solar panels and batteries made in America — specifically Georgia — instead of in China, a geopolitical rival.
Those measures made it into the Inflation Reduction Act, which passed in August 2022 — two years ago this week. The legislation created the nation’s first comprehensive policies to support domestic clean energy manufacturing. Qcells broke ground on a second facility in Dalton in February 2023. Completed that August, the expansion added two football fields’ worth of manufacturing space with four new production lines — which produce 1.5 times more solar panels than the original three lines, thanks to technological advances. Now the whole complex employs 2,000 people full time and makes 5.1 gigawatts of solar panels a year, more than any other site in the U.S.
Politicians have been promising for decades to retrain American workers and revive long-lost manufacturing, with little to show for it. Now, though, the U.S. has entered a new era on trade: Leaders of both parties have rejected the long-standing free-trade consensus and its penchant for offshoring jobs. Biden married that reshoring impulse with a desire to boost clean energy production, to both stimulate the economy and fight climate change.
This grand experiment remains in its infancy, and the success of the clean energy manufacturing revolution is by no means guaranteed. Cheap imports could outcompete even newly subsidized American products.
And if Republicans win the presidency and retake Congress, they’ve threatened to stop subsidizing low-carbon energy resources and instead double down on fossil fuel production. House Republicans — including Dalton’s representative, Marjorie Taylor Greene — have voted repeatedly and unsuccessfully to repeal the domestic manufacturing incentives in the IRA. (Greene’s press office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)
“Donald Trump and his Republican allies promised to gut the Inflation Reduction Act if he’s reelected, so there’s a lot at stake here,” Representative Nikema Williams, who leads the Georgia Democrats, told me.
Since the IRA passed, Georgia has received $23 billion in clean energy factory investment, much of it flowing to northwest Georgia. I wanted to see what impact this is having on communities formerly hit hard by industrial decline, so I followed the money trail to Dalton earlier this summer.
I found a population that seems to like having advanced solar manufacturing in their backyard. Dalton’s solar jobs are boosting wages, invigorating the historic town center, and employing local high school graduates. Those benefits are starting to spread to nearby communities, where new solar factories are springing to life. In November, voters will weigh two very different visions of America’s energy future on the ballot, but Dalton is already reaping the rewards from slotting solar into its storied history of industrial production.
From carpets to solar
Both CSX and Norfolk Southern run Class I rail lines through Dalton, a testament to its industrial legacy, and freight trains bellow day and night.
That legacy harks back to 1900, according to local historians, when Catherine Evans Whitener sold a hand-tufted bedspread from her front porch for $2.50. The cottage industry took off in this land of forested ridges and stream-crossed valleys, and over time, local factories consolidated into global carpeting giants Shaw Industries and Mohawk Industries.
“The carpet industry was born here,” Carl Campbell, executive director of economic development at the Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce, told me when I visited the Chamber. The New Georgia Encyclopedia states that 80 percent of America’s tufted carpet production happens within 100 miles of Dalton.
The conference room where we spoke sported large-format aerial photographs of the major factories nearby: the largest Shaw site, 650,000 square feet; and the new Engineered Floors colossus, 2.8 million square feet.
“You feel like there’s enough carpet in that building to cover the whole world,” said Campbell, who grew up in Dalton.
Dalton employment numbers peaked at 80,200 in 2006, per the Chattanooga Times Free Press. But the Great Recession crushed the homebuilding industry, cratering demand for Dalton’s carpeting products.
Dalton “was a ghost town in 2011, nothing going on because everybody was hurting,” Campbell added. From June 2011 to June 2012, Dalton notched the dubious distinction of most jobs lost of all 372 metro areas surveyed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By that point, one-quarter of Dalton’s pre-recession jobs had vanished, and unemployment surged to 12.3 percent.
Since then, the industry has recovered somewhat. Engineered Floors, Mohawk, and Shaw still dominate local employment, with some 14,000 jobs among them, Campbell said. Those companies have had to adapt to evolving consumer tastes, shifting from wall-to-wall carpets to hardwood and other flooring materials. They’ve also automated aspects of production, reducing the number of workers needed.
In the wake of the Great Recession, local leaders sought to diversify Dalton’s industry. The county acquired an undeveloped lot south of town, and Campbell later pushed to clear and level the site, so it was shovel-ready for some future tenant. When Trump’s solar tariffs kicked in, Campbell’s counterparts at Georgia’s Department of Economic Development sent Qcells his way.
Qcells showed up in February 2018, looking to spin up its first American solar-panel factory in less than a year. “Suddenly, we had exactly what they needed,” Campbell said.
Thus Dalton managed to bring in new industry to balance out its base of carpets and flooring. Qcells originally promised to invest $130 million and hire 525 people within five years, Campbell said.
“They did it in three months,” he added. “In terms of an economic development project, they check all the boxes: Everything they said they would do, they did it faster than they said they would do it.”
Domestic solar manufacturing, by humans and robots
When I asked folks around town what they thought of Qcells, they kept mentioning the dozens of air-conditioning units arrayed on the factory roof, like a field of doghouses, easily visible from I-75. I later learned that Qcells brought in helicopters to install those units, which made for a bit of small-town spectacle. Still, it struck me as a surprising detail to dwell on for a business that somehow turns the sun’s rays into cheap, emissions-free electricity.
Once I crossed Qcells’ sizzling parking lot and stepped indoors, it started to make sense. Georgia gets hot, and carpet factories get hot, but the vast floors of the twin solar factories are quite literally cool places to work.
The climate control is not unique to assembling solar panels, but it is required for the sensitive, precisely calibrated product. The air conditioners are but one sign that high-tech manufacturing has arrived, and that it makes for pretty comfortable work.
I met my two tour guides, Wayne Lock and Alan Rodriguez, in the factory lobby, and they quickly confirmed the physical appeal of Qcells jobs. Lock, now a quality engineer at Qcells, previously worked in carpet manufacturing; he had to wear special heat-resistant gear to handle carpeting materials that would otherwise deliver third-degree burns. Rodriguez, an engineering supervisor at Qcells, used to apply the coating material underneath carpets.
“You’re sandwiched between the steamer and the oven, so it gets quite hot,” Rodriguez told me. Attending to those machines exposed him to temperatures that could exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Even more than Qcells’ air conditioning, though, people I spoke to kept bringing up the pay.
By offering more for zero-skill, entry-level positions than the other factories in town, Qcells started attracting workers and pushed up wages across Dalton, Campbell said: “Competition brings everybody, so everybody’s had to kind of equalize to keep employees.”
Now Qcells hourly wages for non-experienced hires start at $17.50 to $22 — that amounts to $36,400 to $45,760 a year for full-time work. Workers with experience in robotics and manufacturing can take home much more than that. Employees can raise their pay through a variety of on-the-job training, most of which involves handling and troubleshooting the in-house fleet of robots.
Engineers Alan Rodriguez, left, and Wayne Lock pose with a recently completed solar module at Qcells’ new factory in Dalton. (Julian Spector)
Lock, Rodriguez, and I walked into the newest factory, past meeting rooms with names like Naboo and Mandalore, Star Wars locales where quirky robots coexist with all manner of creatures. As we strolled across the floor, squat wheeled autonomous vehicles rolled past us down pathways marked by tape on the smooth floor, ferrying bales of materials or hauling out hulking boxes of finished panels.
“We try to stay out of their way, and if we don’t, they yell at us,” said Lock. “It’s fun.”
As we stood talking, I noticed that one such robo-buggy was waiting for us to move. Barely discernible over the background drone of machines, a female voice intoned, “Robot is moving. Please look out.” When humans hold up more time-sensitive deliveries, Lock explained, the voice switches to male and gets louder.
Other robots remain fixed in place, carrying out repetitive precision tasks. I stared, mesmerized, at one machine that split wafer-thin silicon cells in half, first scoring them with a laser, then slicing them with a concentrated jet of water. A taller machine grabbed nearly 8-foot metal frames and sliced them through the air like a master swordsman in a Kurosawa film, to slot them around glassed-in silicon panels.
Throughout the process, cameras scan cells and use artificial intelligence to shunt defective items off the line for manual correction.
In the 2019-era factory next door, humans carry out many of these tasks. Lock, though, didn’t see the robots as competitors — he said they were taking on more physically demanding jobs so the humans could step into higher-skilled roles tending to robots.
“The ergonomics are better for you,” he said, and the new lines are more productive.
Hiring local, spending local
When Qcells was first staffing up, it relied on Quick Start, a Georgia state program that funds worker training for new factories before they open — a major draw for executives deciding where to locate their factories.
Qcells still recruits to meet ongoing staffing needs, and it has been paying special attention to high schoolers who are graduating and looking for employment. Nash speaks passionately about Qcells’ recruitment efforts; she’s seen the civic fallout from decades when local families encouraged kids to avoid manufacturing.
“Small communities cannot thrive with kids graduating and leaving those communities to live elsewhere, to get high-paying technical jobs,” Nash said. “That’s what’s happening across the country. Bringing manufacturing back, and bringing highly automated manufacturing, is offering job opportunities where now these students are staying here.”
Some 56 percent of Dalton-area students enroll in postsecondary education within 16 months of graduating high school, said Stephani Womack, director of education and workforce development for the Greater Dalton Chamber of Commerce. For the remainder, the chamber wants to make sure family-supporting jobs are available.
For two weeks in June, Womack helped run Project Purpose, a crash course in how to start and navigate careers that pay living wages. Recent high school graduates prepped for interviews, shopped for professional clothes, and toured housing options and downtown hotspots — the kinds of places they could frequent once they join the workforce.
But the centerpiece of the program amounted to professional speed dating, as Dalton’s major employers offered tours and entry-level jobs. Last year, Dalton’s first time running Project Purpose, seven young adults completed the program, and Qcells hired one of them. This time, 18 finished, and Qcells hired 12 of them to start on July 1.
“Next year, we hope to double that, or more,” Nash said.
Several participants came in knowing about Qcells, betting that the intensive crash course would increase their odds of landing good roles there, Womack told me over a table at Garmony House, a downtown coffee shop that draws lines for its statuesque strawberry cupcakes and coffee-glazed cinnamon rolls.
“Qcells is providing a diverse set of options for our students who need to go to work but want to stay in our community,” Womack said. “They see a climate-controlled facility with entry-level opportunities — that’s exciting for them. … Manufacturing isn’t what it used to be.”
For younger people to stay in town and build a life, Dalton needs more housing, and now it’s getting its first large apartment complex in over two decades, Campbell said. In total, 900 apartment units are slated to come online from last August through this November — not enough to catch up on a long-running housing deficit, but a step in the right direction.
That renewed real estate activity is reflected in downtown Dalton’s bustling core.
Locals pack the booths at the Oakwood Cafe, perhaps the only place in America that sells a platter of egg, sausage, toast, and grits for just $3.65. Multiple microbreweries beckon, as does a plush cocktail bar, the Gallant Goat, which stocks fresh mint by the fistful to garnish its drinks. Down the road, diners can sample ceviche of shrimp shipped in from coastal Mexico, succulent chicken wings, and high-end Southern cuisine.
This spring, the plush Carpentry Hotel opened across from the Oakwood Cafe, decked out with vibrant textile art to commemorate the town’s carpeting heritage.
“That’s been big for us, getting that hotel in downtown. That’s indicative of a robust local economy that people are coming to participate in,” local real estate agent Beau Patton told me as the late afternoon sun streamed into the Gallant Goat. Patton works with Qcells employees who want to buy homes in the area. He sees the factory’s decision to locate there as “very mutually beneficial” for Qcells and Whitfield County: “What you hope is Whitfield County grows with it, and it grows with Whitfield County.”
From Dalton to towns across Georgia
Dalton got in early on the national clean-energy factory revival, and has already seen its solar factory push up wages, enable high school graduates to stay and start careers, and inject money into a reinvigorated downtown. Many more communities in Georgia are following close behind with their own cleantech factories, seeking a similar economic jolt.
“There is a palpable and intense sense of excitement across the state about how these manufacturing and infrastructure policies are supercharging Georgia’s economic development,” said Senator Jon Ossoff, the Georgia Democrat who authored the IRA manufacturing incentives that Qcells is tapping into. “And I would add, it’s not just the primary industrial facilities; it’s all of the secondary and tertiary suppliers and vendors and service companies and the financial services firms needed to support them.”
Qcells is building an even bigger factory compound down in Cartersville, which won a conditional $1.45 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy on August 8. This facility will take advantage of Inflation Reduction Act tax credits to onshore more steps of the solar supply chain: slicing silicon wafers, carving them into solar cells, and assembling finished modules with even newer robots than the ones I saw in Dalton. Until now, those high-value precursors to solar panels were shipped in from overseas. Workers in Dalton complete just the last step: assembling modules. Cartersville promises to bring the dream of American-made solar a bit closer to reality.
To achieve that dream, the industry has a few other challenges to confront. For one, 97 percent of the glass that encloses solar panels comes from China. Besides the geopolitical implications of that dependence, glass is so fragile and heavy that its shipping costs make domestic production enticing both economically and environmentally.
“We need domestic glass to have an efficient supply chain,” said Suvi Sharma, founder and CEO of solar recycling startup Solarcycle. His company is breaking ground on a combination solar-panel recycling facility and solar-glass factory in Cedartown, some 70 miles southwest of Dalton. Sharma expects to invest $344 million in the community and hire 600 full-time employees.
Compared with Dalton and Cartersville, “Cedartown is more off the beaten path — this would be the first large-scale factory going up there,” said Sharma. After years in which the population declined and young people looked elsewhere for jobs, “this enables them to keep people and bring in more people. There’s a cascading impact.”
Solarcycle will use its rail spur to ship in low-iron silica from a mine in Georgia, plus soda ash and limestone. Over time, it will supplement those raw ingredients with increasing amounts of glass the company will pull from decommissioned solar panels, including those made by Qcells. The goal is to produce enough glass for 5 gigawatts of panels per year; Solarcycle will ship the glass to nearby customers. At that point, workers in northwest Georgia will have a hand in all the major steps of solar-module production except the processing of raw polysilicon. Hanwha recently became the largest shareholder in REC Silicon to secure access to domestic polysilicon from the Pacific Northwest.
Georgia also nabbed a hefty chunk of the electric-vehicle factory buildout catalyzed by IRA incentives. Hyundai is dropping nearly $1 billion on its “Metaplant” near the deepwater port of Savannah and building an adjacent $4.3 billion battery plant with LG. Kia erected a new EV9 SUV manufacturing line at its plant in West Point, about halfway down Georgia’s border with Alabama. The first EV9 rolled off the line in June — less than two years after the IRA was signed into law.
Dalton, then, is a leading indicator of the industrial invigoration that clean energy factories are bringing to cities and towns across Georgia. People broadly appreciate it — if not for the role in combating climate change or countering China’s industrial might, then for high starting wages, comfortable working conditions, and opportunities for advancement.
But for this nascent factory boom to endure, the policies that triggered it need to stay in effect. The people of Georgia played a decisive role in spurring this manufacturing revival; this November, they’ll have an outsize role in deciding if it continues.
With the launch of the Home Efficiency (HOMES) rebate program, Wisconsin is the first state in the country to begin utilizing IRA funds to help homeowners increase the energy efficiency of their homes. Focus on Energy launched the program in August 2024. This groundbreaking initiative is designed to help homeowners improve their home’s energy efficiency in a more accessible and cost-effective way.
How to Get a HOMES Rebate
The goal of the HOMES rebate is to help people improve the efficiency of their homes. One of the first steps in home electrification and energy efficiency is to evaluate the efficiency of your house to better understand where homes are losing energy, whether through leaky windows, poor insulation, or outdated appliances. Since every person consumes energy differently, getting an energy assessment is a crucial first step to understanding your specific situation and in qualifying for a rebate.
HOMES will offer rebates for whole-home energy projects, such as improving insulation, and heating and cooling equipment. Participants can save anywhere from $1,500 to $10,000 on a project, depending on income, whether they live in a single-family or multi-family home, and how much energy they expect to save.
While renters are not eligible to receive a HOMES rebate, you can encourage your landlord or building owner to participate in the program.
The rebate also has a retroactive aspect. Home Efficiency Rebate projects that started on or after August 16, 2022, are eligible for rebates if they meet specific criteria. To qualify for retroactive HOMES program rebates, projects must comply with all final federal and state program requirements.
Reducing Energy Burden
These rebates offer a crucial first step for many Wisconsinites to become more energy efficient and reduce their energy burden in the process. Energy burden is defined as the percentage of a household’s income that is spent on energy costs, such as electricity, heating, and transportation. According to the American Council for an Energy Efficiency Economy, the average energy burden for Wisconsin is 2 percent, but some low-income households face energy burdens as high as 9 percent. These rebates are a great first step in ensuring more Wisconsinites see their energy burden reduced to a manageable level.
A Cleaner, Healthier Wisconsin
This effort will also help lower emissions from our residential sector. The residential sector is responsible for 8 percent of Wisconsin’s greenhouse gas emissions. In Madison, homes contribute 19.8 percent to the city’s overall emissions. In Milwaukee County, residential energy use made up 25 percent of the county’s total emissions as recently as 2018. By making our air cleaner we not only combat the impacts of climate change, but also collectively benefit associated from fewer days of school and work missed due to illness, less frequent hospital visits, and can lower the localized number of respiratory illnesses.
The rebates also provide a welcome injection into local economies by increasing demand for energy-efficient products and services, which will support new jobs in the energy-efficiency sector. In fact, the U.S. Department of Energy projects that these programs will help families nationwide save around $1 billion each year and create 50,000 jobs within the country.
The Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin is committed to preserving their environment and fostering sustainable growth. In the face of a rapidly changing climate, investing in clean energy isn’t just about harnessing the power of the sun and wind—it’s about empowering their community, protecting their sacred lands, and ensuring a vibrant future for generations to come. With increased clean energy funding opportunities, such as those provided by the Inflation Reduction Act, the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin is creating new opportunities, enhancing economic resilience, and supporting the Tribe’s cultural values.
Special thanks to Isaiah Ness (Sun Bear Industries) and Zoar Fulwilder (Mavid Construction Services) for their work to advance clean energy in Tribal communities and for inviting RENEW to witness the transformation.
Mou Vang grew up in Section 8 housing in the Twin Cities and is familiar with the outdated infrastructure that often exists in affordable housing. Now she uses her experience and knowledge to serve the residents of Wisconsin Housing Preservation Corp (WHPC). Recently, with financial support from the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC) Energy Innovation Grant Program (EIGP) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and technical assistance from Elevate Energy (Elevate), she co-led WHPC’s Green Team toward solar and battery storage for their Villa West property in Green Bay. The energy savings from these efforts will be reinvested in other areas of the property for the benefit of the residents.
WHPC has been dedicated to preserving, providing, and protecting homes for low- and moderate-income individuals and families across Wisconsin for over 20 years. With more than 9,000 housing units across Wisconsin, WHPC’s mission is not just about shelter; it’s about fostering stability, empowerment, and community well-being.
Central to WHPC’s initiatives is sustainability. In 2020 they convened a “Green Team” whose aim is to make its portfolio more environmentally friendly and efficient. By identifying opportunities for sustainable upgrades and prioritizing energy efficiency in its existing and new developments, WHPC is lowering utility expenses, reducing carbon emissions, and making the properties more comfortable for residents.
In April of 2022, WHPC received a grant from the PSC to create a microgrid at Villa West. This Green Bay property offers affordable housing for individuals earning no more than 50 percent of the area median income, with its residents being persons with disabilities or seniors.
“A lot of our properties were built in the mid to late 70s so they don’t have air conditioning,” said Mou. “In Wisconsin, not having air conditioning in a senior and disabled building is concerning.”
As an Asset Manager, Mou is regularly touring properties and can attest to the lack of progress that has been made in the quality of affordable housing. It reminded her of her childhood. On one hand, it forced her to reflect on how far she has come. On the other, she is well aware of the technological advancements that have been made since then and wonders why these properties seem to be frozen in time.
“The properties still look the same,” Mou said. “They still function the same. It really didn’t sit well with me. In 30 years, nothing’s changed.”
There is no shortage of work to be done to create more comfortable living spaces for residents living in affordable housing structures.
Embracing Sustainability through the Green Team
Partners at Elevate play a pivotal role in WHPC’s Green Team. Elevate is a nationwide non-profit specializing in clean affordable energy with a focus on low-income communities. Jake Archbell, Program Manager of Solar Programs at Elevate, leads efforts to study energy usage across properties and implement strategies to enhance efficiency.
For Jake, “The more complicated something is, the more I enjoy it. So, I love projects like this; I love doing new things and managing all the pieces and seeing them come together,” he said.
Jenna Grygier, Associate Director of High Performance Buildings at Elevate echoes Jake’s love for a challenge.
She said, “I’ve seen rooftop solar, ground-mounted solar, micro wind turbines, etc. but I’ve never seen battery storage on multi-family properties. So, it’s pretty exciting for me just to see how it all fits together.”
Bringing Solar and Battery Storage to Villa West
The initial phase of the Villa West project is nearly complete, with three of the twelve buildings having solar panels installed on the roof and backup solar battery storage. The solar panels alone amount to $14,000 of savings annually.
For WHPC, “that $14,000 is the difference between new flooring in the common space so that there’s less of a trip hazard,” said Mou.
While the battery storage has no direct cost savings for WHPC, the indirect savings are very real and tangible for the residents.
Mou explained, “Think of insulin that needs to be refrigerated but the power goes out; the medication may become unusable. Typically, insurance only covers this medication being refilled once a month. So now a person with limited income has to pay out of pocket for insulin to get through the month, in the event of an extended power outage.”
“It’s just something that I think a lot of people don’t think about because we don’t experience it firsthand,” added Mou.
When asked about the intangible benefits of this project for residents, Jenna highlighted an important, yet often overlooked aspect of making people feel valued.
She said, “Even if they [residents] don’t completely understand the mechanics of it, everyone can at least identify the solar panels. My hope is that it might make them feel more valued. That they live in a place where the owner cares enough to do something like renewable energy.”
Paving the Way for Clean Energy Benefits
Earlier this year, WHPC secured additional funding for Villa West to receive installations and storage for two more buildings. As each phase progresses, the vision of outfitting all buildings with solar and battery storage inches closer to reality, shaping a brighter, more sustainable future for Villa West and its residents.
Villa West Phase I was funded with a PSC EIGP award in 2022 for $500,000. WHPC will also be taking advantage of Focus on Energy incentives available at the time of installation completion to help fund this effort. Additionally, the IRA’s Elective Pay provision will enable Villa West to secure a federal rebate covering 30% of the solar project’s cost.
As WHPC continues to pave the way in the affordable housing sector, its commitment to sustainability stands as a testament to its ethos. Through the efforts of individuals like Mou and the Green Team, WHPC is providing housing, nurturing communities, and fostering a brighter, more sustainable future for all. In this journey towards inclusive, eco-conscious housing, WHPC is not just building structures; it’s building hope and resilience.
Mou added, “It truly is an investment back to the property and the tenants benefit from it.”
Duke Energy’s plan to zero out its carbon pollution all but ignores a federal loan program that could save ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars and enable more clean energy, the state’s ratepayer advocate said in recent filings.
And since the loans run out in September 2026, state Public Staff and clean energy advocates say time is running out for Duke to correct course.
“This is a singular bite at the apple that they’re going to get,” said Jeremy Fisher, principal adviser for climate and energy at the Sierra Club. “So, we’re not in a position to sit here and say, ‘hey Duke, in your next [long-term plan], you should model it.’ This is the moment.”
Public Staff called attention to the $250 billion federal Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment Program in its assessment of Duke’s proposed biennial carbon reduction plan, the first of which was approved by state regulators at the end of 2022, months after the surprise passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.
In accepting Duke’s plan that year, regulators noted: “it is appropriate for Duke to incorporate the impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act… and other future legislative changes… into its [Carbon Plan and long-range generation] proposal that it will file with the Commission on or before September 1, 2023.”
But Public Staff and other intervenors say the utility did not fully do so, at least when it comes to the Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment Program.
“The Public Staff has concerns regarding Duke’s failure to model the [loan] program,” wrote Jeff Thomas, an engineer with the agency. The program, he added later, “represents a significant opportunity for cost savings for ratepayers tied to the deployment of new clean energy resources.”
Bundling retirement refinancing with new clean energy
The loans are perhaps less well known than the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax incentives for everything from electric vehicles to solar panels to offshore wind turbines.
But they’re just as important, if not more so, especially in light of the North Carolina law that requires Duke to reduce its carbon emissions in a “least cost” manner.
Fisher said utilities can take advantage of the program to varying degrees, with proportionate savings for ratepayers.
In the “ideal use of this program,” Fisher said, utilities can refinance outstanding loans for their retiring coal plants and combine them with new clean energy investments, all for a low interest rate. Then there’s a “lesser version,” in which a utility doesn’t transfer its balance on old coal plants but does finance new clean energy projects through the federal government. Finally, he said, there’s “one more step down.” That’s where a company like Duke essentially switches to the government debt it would otherwise owe a bank.
In a recent paper, the clean energy think tank Rocky Mountain Institute explained why this last option is least desirable for ratepayers.
“If utilities do nothing more than use [Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment] loans to displace corporate debt,” researchers wrote, “overall ratepayer savings will be minimal, since most utilities can already borrow at reasonably attractive interest rates without the added complication and expense of participating in a government program.”
Michelle Boswell, director of Public Staff’s accounting division, relayed an example of a Missouri utility that could maximize the Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment program and save its customers over $900 million. “While these ratepayer benefits come at the expense of lower earnings for the utility,” Boswell noted, “they are consistent with the least-cost mandate contained in [state law].”
‘Take aggressive advantage?’
At a technical hearing last week before regulators, Thomas reiterated that position. “As the ratepayer advocate, cost is a major concern,” he said. “We believe there are ways to control costs. One proposal is that Duke should take aggressive advantage of the Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment loan program.”
Doing so could save ratepayers more than $400 million through 2032, Thomas said last week, and lead to increased renewable and storage deployment.
Testifying on behalf of Attorney General Josh Stein, expert witness Edward Burgess stressed the loan program could be utilized to cover transmission upgrades needed to connect more solar and storage to the grid.
“Reconductoring of transmission lines could allow for significantly greater renewable resource availability,” Burgess wrote. “This could be done much more cost-effectively with assistance from the Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment program.”
Indeed, advocates say the federal program doesn’t just promise to lower ratepayer costs for the clean energy Duke currently proposes. By changing the economic calculus, the loans could spur the company to invest in more storage and solar and retire its coal plants sooner.
Duke’s proposed 1,360-megawatt gas plant outside Roxboro in Person County is a case in point.
In theory, rather than replace coal smokestacks on Hyco Lake with gas-fired units, Duke could build battery storage and clean energy on the site instead.
That investment would qualify the utility for an additional 10% federal tax incentive, since it would be located within 30 miles of a retiring coal plant. Much of the outstanding debt on the old fossil fuel plant and the solar and battery investments could be leveraged into a low-interest loan through the federal government.
Testifying for several clean energy advocacy groups, expert witness Maria Roumpani said that Duke may not be taking full advantage of this additional 10% incentive, since it assumes that 60% of its new standalone batteries will be sited at retired coal sites.
“Although the approach seems reasonable,” Roumpani wrote, “it might lead to the analysis overlooking certain opportunities to replace coal capacity.”
The Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment Program and the 10% bonus credit for former coal plant communities could also work in concert with so-called securitization of Duke’s coal-fired power plants, in which the remaining book value of plants is paid off through bonds backed by ratepayers.
The same state law requiring Duke to zero out its carbon pollution also calls for only half of the book value of its least efficient coal plants to be securitized. Theoretically, advocates say, the remainder could be paid off through the federal loan program.
‘A once-in-a-decade opportunity’
Asked about Public Staff’s assertion that the utility didn’t account for the federal loan program in its latest proposal for phasing out carbon, spokesperson Bill Norton said Duke was still reviewing the filing.
He added, “we have already engaged with the Department of Energy and other utilities to learn more about the… program and see if it provides benefits to our customers. We will pursue all federal funding that we believe can reduce energy transition costs for our customers in a manner that protects reliability, supports our coal plant communities and accommodates North Carolina’s growing economy.”
Public Staff and others say time is of the essence. The loan program has a limited amount of funds, and records suggest other utilities have already applied for nearly half the total. That means Duke needs to begin applying for the loans as soon as possible, and, critics argue, should have already started.
“By failing to examine this option,” the attorney general said in its filing, “Duke may be missing out on a once-in-a-decade opportunity to save millions for its customers.”
Along with new tax breaks for families and businesses in return for investing in clean and more efficient energy, the federal government is for the first time offering support to schools and other nonprofits that make those investments.
“Direct support” payments from the Internal Revenue Service will pay back school districts, churches and other nonprofit organizations for part of what they spend on energy renovations that cut their energy use and replace fossil fuels.
For schools the program represents an opportunity to make energy upgrades that many have had to skimp on, according to Nathan Ugoretz, secretary-treasurer of the Wisconsin Education Association Council.
As state school funding falls behind the rising costs public school districts face, “funding for maintenance and improvements have been put on the chopping block,” Ugoretz said Thursday. School districts across Wisconsin have held referendum votes to raise property taxes to support ongoing expenses.
“This leaves no resources for overhauling outdated electrical systems or investments to cut energy costs,” Ugoretz said.
Ugoretz spoke at Forest Edge Elementary School, a Fitchburg school that has been singled out for its strides in improving energy efficiency. In 2021, the school, after operating for just one year, was recognized as the first Net Zero Energy school in Wisconsin — producing and returning to the power grid as much energy as it used.
The BlueGreen Alliance, an advocacy group that combines the interests of the labor and environmental movements, chose the school Thursday for a presentation on how clean energy and energy efficiency tax credits under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act are available to more than just taxpayers, whether individuals or businesses.
Direct IRS support that passes those tax credits on to nonprofits will help accelerate the spread of green technology to more users, participants in Thursday’s event said.
“That is a really, really big deal — not only because we get to model for our students what a clean energy economy looks like, but because utility costs for schools are one of the biggest demands on school budgets,” said Kristina Costa, deputy assistant to President Joe Biden for clean energy innovation and implementation. “And when energy costs go up, that leaves fewer resources available for everything else that students need to do.”
Cutting those costs by boosting energy efficiency “frees up those precious dollars to improve our schools and in other ways to enrich our kids’ education,” Costa added.
Spurred by the Inflation Reduction Act, businesses have invested $1.7 billion on clean power projects in Wisconsin through May 2024, according to the White House.
“This is a win, win, win,” said Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Town of Vermont) — for improving education resources, for labor and “more professional job development to have good wages and benefits. Pocan praised the Biden administration for taking “the high road,” adding, “it’s a win for the environment because ultimately we’re addressing climate change through addressing the rising cost of energy.”
Forest Edge school was built well before the Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law, but as Wisconsin’s first net-zero energy school, “it’s an example of what’s possible for schools across the state,” state Carly Eaton, Wisconsin policy manager for BlueGreen Alliance.
From the start the Oregon School District facility was developed to be as energy efficient and clean-energy focused as possible, school district officials said.
A total of 1,704 solar panels line the flat rooftops of the building, providing enough electricity that the district is able to sell some of it back to the power grid, according to Andy Weiland, Oregon School District business manager. Walls of glass maximize natural light in the building, while the panes are specially treated to darken automatically in sunlight to prevent the building interior from heating up.
Geothermal energy, which draws heat from deep below the earth’s surface, and heat pump technology warm the school — and also keep it cool when the weather outside is warm.
“For the most part we don’t have to use any fossil fuels at all,” Weiland said as he gave a tour of the building Thursday.
Had the district been able to use the Inflation Reduction Act’s direct support program when it was building the school, the savings, Weiland speculated, “would have been several million dollars.”
Beyond the savings that the act promises for people and organizations that use its incentives to upgrade their energy systems, the legislation has also been championed for provisions that require contractors to pay employees prevailing local wages on projects that qualify for the full values of tax credits. It also requires projects to employ participants in licensed apprenticeship programs.
The two requirements help stabilize the construction workforce, said Emily Pritzkow, executive director of the Wisconsin Building Trades Council, which represents about 40,000 Wisconsin members in several construction unions.
“By utilizing competitive labor standards, including an area’s standard wages, benefits and training opportunities, we are ensuring the economic impact of these projects stays in our local community for generations to come,” Pritzkow said.
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